A recent press release from Gartner headlined the prediction that sales enablement budgets will increase by 50% by 2027.
While this is a very encouraging message for enablers and business leaders alike, the sales enablement landscape will continue to evolve based on the decisions of many companies to either reduce or drastically cut their entire sales enablement functions.
Gartner adds: "Budget increases will bring heightened expectations of sales enablement results. The onus is on chief sales officers (CSOs) to prioritize demonstrating its ROI, particularly when faced with ongoing macroeconomic pressures.”
Kunal Pandya, Founder and Revenue Growth Consultant at Sales Velocity Labs commented: "With Gartner's prediction, there will be further emphasis and scrutiny on sales and enablement leaders to prove the ROI on sales enablement. Leadership need to focus on those strategies that deliver the highest returns at the lowest complexity. Enablement leaders need to ensure those strategies are aligned with not only the goals of their business, but shifting buyer behaviours."
By defining clear and measurable enablement strategies that focus on improving the key revenue-based gaps, sales enablement can play a significant role in helping their companies survive or continue to scale.
This task is made feasible by using the levers of sales velocity, providing enablers with the tools to:
Define a laser-focused sales enablement strategy
Align your strategy to business goals
Obtain stake holder buy-in or investment
Measure outcomes
Transform sales enablement to a strategic business driver
Gartner go on to state that sales leaders need to:
"Draw a stronger connection between revenue goals and enablement activities"
Sales velocity is the perfect mechanism to clearly correlate enablement activities to revenue impact.
"Build and implement a variety of enablement activities, such as coaching, training and creating tools, to achieve the desired behaviors."
Sales velocity isn't just about measuring the impact of enablement strategies, it is about defining what those strategies should be right from conception. When implemented correctly, sales velocity will uncover the gaps across essential levers such as pipeline, win rate, average deal sizes and time-to-close, and therefore pinpoint the behaviours that need to be implemented via coaching and learning in order to bridge those gaps.
"Measure those behaviors and gauge enablement impact"
There are no two ways about it. If enablement are not able to correlate their programs to revenue impact, the risks of to the function will remain.
"Promoting a complete view of enablement’s impact by building a compelling narrative of the behavior change driven by enablement that ties back to the sales goals.”
Tying back to sales goals has never been more important. For too long, enablers have veered away from attributing their activities to revenue outcomes because it is not easy, and there is a risk of damaging credibility. Sales velocity directly translates to sales goals, and by aligning enablement strategies to it's levers, enablers have a clear-cut method to impact revenue outcomes.
By aligning with sales velocity levers to obtain stakeholder buy-in, and measure quantifiable outcomes, sales enablement leaders can de-risk their role and create a strategy that delivers real value to the business. By doing so, they can help their organisations succeed in a rapidly changing business environment and secure their place as a critical part of the sales organisation.
コメント